Reviewed by Alyson Baker
When Detective Inspector Jaye Hamilton stops at an Auckland liquor store for a bottle of champagne, it is supposed to be his daughter Addison has just gotten engaged. Instead, he is suddenly gunned down at the register by a balaclava-clad assailant in what appears at first to be a random act. The getaway car is quickly recovered, containing the cell phone of a young Māori man, Toa Davis, who is immediately the object of an all-out police search.
Jaye’s ex-wife, former Māori detective Hana Westerman, asks in on the investigation. Her instincts suggest that the vehicle was meant to be found, and that Jaye had been targeted. The gun used in the assault is distinctive, and she learns that a local gang leader, Erwin Rendall—who had threatened Hana in the past—owns such a weapon. When Davis turns up dead, the hunt for Rendall is on. Yet when Rendall slips through the dragnet and escapes the country, and in the wake of Jaye’s death, Hana decides to rejoin the force, acknowledging that she has unfinished business still.
Hana Westerman’s life as an ex-cop in Tātā Bay, working with her dad on a driver training scheme for the local youth, is about to be shattered in many ways: Illness in the family, an impending wedding, a possible new relationship, desperate friends making wrong decisions, and a devastating event that leads to her facing the kind of offender no one “in the history of New Zealand policing has encountered before”.
CARVED IN BLOOD is full of characters that readers of Hana’s previous exploits will know, which makes her experiences this time around gripping, both emotionally and viscerally. Warmth and threat are woven throughout the novel. In the talk of Matariki: a time of reflection, of coming together, of valuing the dead; in the images of Hana being circled by a shark, “Its eyes never leaving her”.
In the wake of an horrific violent crime, Hana is sworn in as a temporary constable of the New Zealand Police. She finds herself once again in the conflicted position of being a Māori cop in a country where “Māori are one of the most incarcerated Indigenous races on the planet”, and she is tormented by the question: “Why the hell did this kid go and get a gun, walk into a shop and do the awful thing he did?”
The answer to that question is complicated and takes Hana to the Moon Lake Bistro and Lounge, a front for high stakes gambling and illicit imports, takes her back to her memories of a highly fortified gang pad, and requires her to visit a storage unit that may hold information that will overturn everything she knows about someone she loves.
There are new characters too, for instance Elisa Williams, head of the investigation. Williams is ex-SAS, having served in Afghanistan – she left when she felt she was part of “a painful and soul-destroying process of witnessing warring nations implode”. And there is Gracie Huia, young, staunch, pregnant, and seriously in need of someone to believe her side of the story.
Hana begins to suspect that the prevailing Police theory of the case is wrong, and gradually finds herself pushed to the edge – literally in one thrilling car chase. She digs deep to find stability: “Hana was trained to kill. But you do everything you possibly can to never pull the trigger.” However, she does find situations in her personal life that require a bit of flexibility – her daughter Addison commenting: “‘Sheesh, Mum … You believe in the rules, until you don’t.”
The plotting of CARVED IN BLOOD starts in slow motion and then takes off like a rocket. The mystery unfolds as the reader immerses themselves in Hana’s world. People both sides of the law will consider breaking it if they are desperate enough – or empathetic enough. Even the villain of the piece, “His mind is a sticky place. Nothing escapes”, is the victim of a swirl of situations, culminating in evil – just as weather conditions collide to form a serious storm with “as much rain in a day as would normally fall in three months” – a tense backdrop to escalating events.
The moral complexity of the characters is reflected by other contrasts. Rats are for many regarded negatively, a word for a snitch or a traitor, in the novel they symbolise horrific things happening in garden sheds – but “The tā moko artist explained – for us Māori, rats aren’t nasty, ugly things. They’re smart as hell … They’re tricksters, man. They can get themselves out of the shittiest situations”. Everything has another way of looking at it – I’ll never again have the same response to anyone suggesting “a visit to the Desert Road”!
One of the most poignant contrasts is that between those who are sent off in an unadorned wharenui and those who are sent off by tens of thousands at Eden Park. However, the novel makes the point that all lives become equal at Matariki: “All year long the navigator of the canoe collects the souls of those who have passed in a net. Then the waka disappears, and when it emerges again, the souls are released. And they become the new stars.”
An excellent continuation of the Hana Westerman series, CARVED IN BLOOD can be read as a stand-alone, but if you haven’t read the previous two instalments, you really should! And the novel finishes with indications of a next book in the series – great!
Alyson Baker is a crime-loving former librarian in Nelson. This review first appeared on her blog, which you can check out here.
No comments:
Post a Comment